Random musings on life, society, and politics

Month: August 2017

“This is crazy,” Jerry said. “Why do we need to memorize all these dates? Isn’t understanding what took place more important than when they happened?”

“Knowing when events occurred helps you build a timeline for the events, and that also enables you to gain insights into what led up to those events,” his tutor answered. “It helps you put history into perspective.”

“There’s got to be a better way than to memorize all these stupid dates,” Jerry lamented.

“Did you ever hear the song The Battle of New Orleans?” The tutor asked.

“No,” Jerry answered.

“It came out way before you were born,” she said, “but that song enabled me to easily remember when that battle took place and who fought it.” She took out her iPhone, opened up her music app, and started playing that song. They both listened to the lyrics.

In 1814 we took a little trip,Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.We took a little bacon and we took a little beans,And we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while agoWe fired once more and they begin to runnin’On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Before the song ended, an excited Jerry shouted, “Now that’s a great way to learn history.”

“Hmm, it is indeed,” his tutor said.

That night, when her son came home for dinner, she sat him down and said, “Lin-Manuel, I have a great idea about how to help children learn about history.”

“Wow,” Sandra exclaimed. “This was built before our country was even discovered.”

“Yes it was,” answered Sandra’s mother. “A lot of structures in England were built long before America was discovered. But did you know that America existed before it was discovered by Europeans?”

“But how can something exist before it’s been discovered?” Sandra asked.

“That’s an excellent question,” Sandra’s mother said. “The land existed and people who we now call ‘Native Americans’ lived there. But the Europeans thought they were uncivilized and primitive, so they didn’t really count, and then the white descendants of the Europeans nearly wiped them out.”

The quote, “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt” is often attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

But some say that Mark Twain said something very similar: “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”

Of course, it’s possible that neither Lincoln nor Twain said either one of these. One site, Brainy Quotes, attributes the alleged Lincoln quote to “Unknown.”

But where these similar quotes originated is not the point I wish to make here. I would hope that the current President of the United States would heed either of these warnings. Because with every word he utters and every word he tweets, he is removing all doubt to the world what a fool he is.

The lead singer came back onto the stage and held up both of his hands to quiet the excited audience down after a few minutes of wild cheering and calls for an encore.

He kept both hands up until it became silent enough in the large arena that you could hear that proverbial pin drop.

The silence lasted for around thirty seconds before he grabbed the neck of his guitar with his left hand and brought his right hand down to the body and across the strings as he began the riff to the song everyone had been waiting for.